Archive By Section - Editorial

I am excited to talk about some of the changes we are making here at the Turlock Journal. Beginning this week we will be adding a Friday publication to our printed product. It will be delivered to our home delivery subscribers at no additional charge and available in our current retail outlets and racks.

The real game changer for the economically challenged in the San Joaquin Valley won't by California High Speed Rail. It'll be well-run traditional rail modeled after the Altamont Corridor Express service.

In my younger years, I dreamed of one day being a writer. I would write short stories, typically filled with things only the childhood imagination could conceive, and relentlessly make my two older brothers listen to every last detail (when you're the youngest and the only girl, you can get away with that sort of thing).

Today marks the 12th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, that fateful day when thousands of people were killed on American soil by a group of terrorist thugs whose Muslim extremist organization took credit for the attack. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon represented a turning point in what terrorist organizations were willing to do to make their point. The killing of thousands of civilians was an act of unmasked cowardice. It was an attempt to bring the people of this great country to their knees in fear of the next attack. The terrorists acted not only ...

"Richmond rhymes with enrichment," Gayle McLaughlin, the mayor of the California city, boasts on the city's website. In reality, Richmond does not rhyme with enrichment. The slogan, however, is apt for the first American city poised to seize mortgages by eminent domain. City pols claim that the scheme is legal because the city would pay "fair market value" for private property in the furtherance of public good. Call the scheme Richmond Hood, in honor of Robin of Sherwood Forest.

It sounds like science fiction when you first hear about it, but some people see it as a way of addressing both animal welfare issues and environmental concerns. I'm talking about growing meat cells for human consumption from stem cells harvested from a cow. This so-called "cultured beef" recently was unveiled in London by a group led by Mark Post, a physiologist at the Netherland's Maastricht University.

Here's how you know the California prison inmate hunger strike is a stunt, if a dangerous stunt: The strike to protest security housing units in California prisons began with 30,000 participants; Jay Leno, Susan Sarandon and other celebrities signed a letter that denounced the SHU as "solitary confinement" and "torture." As of Thursday, the count was down to 79 inmates, including 44 who had fasted continuously.